DENVER - State government and business leaders brought a united message to the Progressive 15 Voices of Rural Colorado meeting here Thursday and Friday: Colorado's system of public funding is broken and rural communities are suffering because of it.

The phrase "non-sustainable" passed the lips of many of the speakers over the two-day conference, held in the Old Supreme Court Chambers of the Capitol.

One after another, the state's leadership trooped to the podium to assure the nearly 150 attendees that urban Colorado understands its obligation to help rural Colorado meet challenges in education, transportation, health care, and broadband access. And it starts with fixing what's wrong with the funding process.

On Thursday Kelly Brough, president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, delivered perhaps the strongest message of urban support for rural Coloradans. Brough said the Metro Chamber is "committed to a statewide solution" to funding highway and road improvement and expansion, but it's also only fair that the state's 20 million tourists chip in with that solution. That's why the Chamber is pushing a 1 percent sales tax increase statewide to go to transportation. Brough said she realizes the sales tax increase would hit the metro area harder than rural areas, but that's only fair.

"This region has an obligation to the rest of the state to help with funding," Brough said. "The metro area produces 59 percent of the (sales tax) revenue and about 41 percent is returned to the metro area. And that is fair."

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Brough said the Chamber also is pushing hard to persuade the legislature to do whatever is needed to remove all budget and spending formulas from the state constitution. Although she didn't say so, that would require the General Assembly to put a referred constitutional amendment before the voters. If passed, the amendment would basically repeal the Gallagher Amendment, TABOR, and Amendment 23. The three amendments are largely blamed for the serious decline in recent years in money available for K-12 public education in Colorado.

The state's taxation system didn't escape the governor's attention, either. During opening remarks on Thursday, Gov. John Hickenlooper called for an overhaul of the state's severance tax code. Severance taxes are paid on finite natural resources that are removed for commercial reasons. In Colorado that means oil and gas.

But energy producers are able to escape the state's severance taxes through a loophole that allows them to deduct corporate property taxes they pay from their severance tax bills.

"We need a traditional severance tax on oil and gas," Hickenlooper said. "We need to nudge the Republican leadership in both the senate and the house in that direction."

Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne led the Friday session with the message that the Capitol is painfully aware of the challenges facing rural Colorado. Lynne's remarks were a re-statement of similar messages delivered by Gov. John Hickenlooper, House Speaker Crisanta Duran, and Secretary of State Wayne Williams the day before.

Challenged by a Summit County commissioner on the cost of health insurance, Lynne conceded that "affordable health care just isn't available in rural Colorado," and noted that the worst disparity is in the state's mountain communities. However, she said the state's lawmakers are unwilling to address issue.

"The cost on the eastern plains, while not as dramatic, is still unaffordable," she said. "We asked for $6 million from the legislature, to help people in the mountain communities buy health insurance, which the (Joint Budget Committee) approved, but it did not get through the Senate."

Lynne cited the actions taken in Alaska, where rural communities are "protected' from outrageously high insurance. She said there is a reinsurance bill that wil be introduced during the current session and "I'm pretty sure we have the ability to convince the insurance companies to support that."

State Treasurer Walker Stapleton followed Lynn Friday morning and told the group Colorado government needs to take a "holistic approach" to economic development and include the virtues of the state's rural communities when boasting the state's attributes.

Stapleton also talked about broadband access, health care costs and said he "will continue to be a proponent of economic development across all of Colorado."

Asked about the $890 million a year funding shortfall in public education, Stapleton said there are "structural problems" with the way schools are funded. He said the continued dunning of school funds to pay for a looming unfunded debt of the state's Public Employee Retirement Account cannot go on.

"Twenty percent of every dollar allocated for teachers is siphoned right off the top to pay for (unfunded obligations of) PERA," he said. "We cannot continue to pay for a structurally broken retirement system. It's just not sustainable."

Several speakers said it is imperative that lawmakers come up with a plan to fully fund PERA by no later than 2038 and make sure it stays funded after that.

The Voices of Rural Colorado meeting was sponsored by Progressive 15, a consortium of 15 northeastern Colorado counties, Action 22, which is the 22 counties of southeastern Colorado, and Club 20, the 20 counties of Colorado's Western Slope.

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